The story contains a great deal of one being racist towards the one person he should have treasured the most and that was his wife. Throughout the story he would make comments calling her names due to her ethnicity and make fun of her hair, even pulling it at times. It was fairly obvious he didn’t care if he hurt his wife’s feelings no remorse was even shown for his rude, condescending behavior. The tension between Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer was evident when Mr. Sawyer passed away.
The tension the two had was due to the lack of understanding between the two cultures he was of European dissent and she was from the Caribbean. While the british people moved to the island they didn’t have much respect for the natives they treated them poorly and fellow creole people didn’t feel it was fair. This particular story lacks the importance of learning each others communication styles and culture. Tension could have been decreased had they communicated with one another versus being against each other.
Mr. Sawyer had no interest of learning about the island he lived on. Instead, he had books shipped from England. This played a key part on how he had no interest in learning about the Caribbean instead he focused his learning on continuing his British life. He hated everything about the island and was open about it had no regard to those living on it. If he would of taken interest in learning about the island he lived on he may have understood his wife and the people around him.
However, since Mr. Sawyer choose to ignore everything about the island once he passed away everyone had hatred towards him including his wife. The title of this short story plays an important role in the story. The day the books were burnt was Mrs. Sawyer burning her late husbands most treasured items…his books. I am troubled on why Mrs. Sawyer would stay with a man who treats her poorly both in private and in front of others? Your spouse should be your right hand, your back bone, your biggest cheerleader. Why let that person put you down and basically degrade you? The other part I couldn’t understand was if Mr. Sawyer was so uninterested in the island why didn’t he go back to England? Above all else, if he was so uninterested and had resentment towards the people why marry one of the islanders?
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